Disagreeing Strategies in University Classroom Discussions among Indonesian EFL Learners

Abstract

This study aims at finding out patterns of the relationship between students’ strategies in disagreeing and their English proficiency using qualitative conversational analysis. Students joining Seminar on Linguistics course in the School of Culture Studies at Universitas Brawijaya (UB) Indonesia in the odd semester of 2010-2011 were the participants of this research. They were classified into four levels of language proficiency: pre-intermediate, intermediate, pre-advanced, and advanced according to their TOEFL scores. The data of this study were students’ utterances containing the force of disagreement, their TOEFL scores, and their responses to interviews. The findings of this research suggest that students’ strategies in disagreeing can be classified into two macro strategies: direct and indirect strategies. Direct strategy covers four micro strategies: refusal, denial, correction, and strong criticism. Indirect strategy was represented in four micro strategies: mild-criticism, internally-contrasting, reminding, and suggestion. Besides, the findings revealed that students having higher levels of English proficiency tended to use indirect strategies, but those at lower levels used direct ways in disagreeing.